Kiiminkijoki (Spectatorium II) (scène 16)

2017

Performing Arts Research Center Helsinki

Videoscenic installation

Stage model, video (colour/1′ in a loop), narration (headset)

A looping filmed sequence shows a part of the river Kiiminkijoki (Finland) in the spring melting. The ice is perforated in the middle and the appearing hole produces a whirl that looks like a hurricane eye with the reflexion of the clouds in the just-melted water. The video is screened as the stage of the damaged cardboard replica of Steele MacKaye’s legendary collapsed Spectatorium (World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893), so that the viewer sees the scene from above, conferring to the spectating a planetary scale. By the installation MacKayes’s instructions for building a floating stage, a cloud-machine or a wavemaker for the failed Spectatorium are displayed on headphones.